White House threatens veto as CISPA vote nears

The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto a dangerously broad online security bill that would grant companies a legal pass for turning over information to the government, potentially including personal communications of customers.
The aim of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is to fortify the nation’s cyber defenses by allowing private and public entities to share data about emerging threats, in itself a laudable goal. It’s expected to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
But groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned that CISPA grants legal immunity to companies that share personal information with the government, by specifically overriding existing privacy statutes.
The phrase “notwithstanding any other provision of law” appears repeatedly throughout the text.
“It creates a gaping hole in existing privacy law,” said Rainey Reitman, activism director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The bill also doesn’t require companies to strip out personally identifable information before handing over the data, after an amendment mandating that died in committee. This seemed to be the chief worry of the White House.
The Administration “remains concerned that the bill does not require private entities to take reasonable steps to remove irrelevant personal information when sending cybersecurity data to the government or other private sector entities,” read a statement of administrative policy from the White House. “Citizens have a right to know that corporations will be held accountable – and not granted immunity – for failing to safeguard personal information adequately.”